At the cost of voicing the unpopular opinion, I never like the original concept and rendition of Lara Croft (both in games and movies). I can appreciate a nice badass girl as much as anyone else, but that was where my interest stopped. The character felt ... very basic. Lara was tough, cool and all of that, but we never get the hows and whys of the character, she just was.

This version is much more up my alley. Sure, this Lara suffers much more abuse than her original incarnation, but she comes out on top and the struggle really make the character.

(formerly Anon, still Librarian)

"What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?" ("Gentleman" John Marcone)

Woodclaw wrote: At the cost of voicing the unpopular opinion, I never like the original concept and rendition of Lara Croft (both in games and movies). I can appreciate a nice badass girl as much as anyone else, but that was where my interest stopped. The character felt ... very basic. Lara was tough, cool and all of that, but we never get the hows and whys of the character, she just was.

This version is much more up my alley. Sure, this Lara suffers much more abuse than her original incarnation, but she comes out on top and the struggle really make the character.

I'm with you Woodclaw. I never played the games or otherwise had anything to do with Lara Croft except as a marginally superhuman character in the movies. Even if the superhuman stuff was just her incredibly well-developed skills, reflexes and fitness. (Ok, her incredibly well-developed chest was nice.)

But there was nothing more complex about the character in the movies. She was a plastic video-game character that had been animated. Even worse, she came from an early era of videogames where the characters were just props for the player to animate. They didn't have to create a deep emphatic understanding with the character's feelings. Or their history.

Although the movie did provide a nice Angelina image that I used to depict invulnerability. Now, I could get behind this kind of Lara Croft.

Those with long memories may recall a 2004 workshop by Supergirls, Inc. (now SWM), for which I and several others wrote Lara Croft stories (Mine was "The Amulet of Raja."). I tried to give Lara more substance than the movies/video games, and also threw in some real archaeology. But the story came in dead last. It may still be in the SWM Library, along with the others, If not you can find it here: